Horror up the Hudson
by TryJamOnToast
Summary: Jacob becomes obsessed with slenderman myths. But they're just myths right?...right?


I was in my freshman year of college when my friends introduced me to Slenderman. Not physically, obviously, but online. MH, T12, and EMH, I fell in love with their youtube channels. It got a bit out of hand. I started skipping classes to watch videos. I started sleeping during the day, I was too afraid to sleep at night. Every conversation I had was either about Slenderman, or convincing someone else to watch the videos. I was obsessed, which caused me to fail out of school and return home.

I was told to see a psychologist, apparently they're the ones who help you with mental issues, I always thought it was the psychiatrist but oh well. After a few weekly visits he said I had paranoia with obsessive tendencies, no shit. I went to a doctor to prescribe medicine for it, and started taking it daily. That's really where it all started.

I started making connections between myself and characters in the videos. I was paranoid, alone, powerless, surrounded by wooded areas, and now on top of that I'm taking crazy medicine. All I needed was a hacking cough and I could be a stand in.

Oh, I'm getting carried away as usual, I'm Jacob Masters, and this is my story.

My eyesight was never very good, hell it was borderline crap. So I just shook it off as an odd blur when I thought I saw things. At first it was just when I stayed up too late, so it was my "fatigue" that made me see things. It steadily became more frequent. Randomly throughout the day, I'd see strange things. I did just see that shadow move, there was definitely a shape in my driveway, I'm not going crazy. Okay maybe I was. I even had this dream where I was floating on a log in a stream. I look down and see Slenderman's reflection on the water, but when I look up I can't see Slenderman anywhere.

Okay we get it, you're crazy. What does that have to do with anything?

It means everything because, get this, I wasn't crazy.

A couple months pass as this all continues, until one night, around one A.M. I hear a knock on my door. My parents were asleep, and I was paranoid, so I grab my baseball bat and check the front porch. Images of entry 1 rush through my head but I force them out. I open the door and see two of my friends from college: Will Rodriguez and Dale Broman. Both were rather tall, tough dudes. Will was more Brooklyn tough, while dale was northern suburban tough. Both were a foot taller than me. At first I'm happy to see them, until I notice the time, and their faces.

"What's…?" I start to say but Dale quickly cuts me off

"He's after you."

"What? Why? Who?" I start thinking of everyone I've possibly pissed off in the past year.

"Who do you think?"

"Uhhhh…Santa?"

"Cut the crap"

"Obviously I have no clue. why don't you just tell me"

"How have you not seen him yet?"

"Who is it?"

"It's…" Will's patience obviously ran dry here as he jumps in

"God damn it! It's Slenderman" Dale cringes at the name, "Yes I know you hate the name but wasting time isn't gonna help." Will turns back to me. "Look, Jacob, We need your help. He's not just after you he's after everyone who associates themselves with you, and you're the only one who might know what to do."

"Guys, I told you. Pranks about Slenderman cross a line. So stop it."

"This isn't a joke, we have footage. Look! He even took Matt and Pam"

The footage shows 6 of them playing apples to apples. They are all sitting around a knee high, wooden table. Pam, a short girl with jet black hair, and Matt, the uh "black kid" in our group, were sitting on an incredibly green couch. Will and Dale pulled chairs from their dorms and used them. Then there was my brother James on a tall wooden stool. He had short, blackish brown hair, and glasses. Kind of like Harry Potter. Aidan was the sixth one. He basically looked like Kurt Cobain with black hair. He decided to sit on the floor. They were in the floors lounge, a large, pasty, white room with posters advertising different clubs and activities. Everyone acknowledges that they are now being filmed, by smiling or waving.

Pam, who was judging the round, ponders for a bit but finally decides, "Rain is definitely the most fancy. I have to go with that"

Matt claims his card in victory while everyone else rages about their card not being the most fancy.

As the next round begins, the category card was *foreboding*. Everyone starts checking their cards when the video goes dark. Apparently the building had a power failure. Three cell phones light up as make shift flashlights.

"Damn, everyone okay" Will calls out

"Just a power failure, why wouldn't we be?" James chuckles

"Ah crap my phones almost dead, wait Will are you still filming?" asks Aidan

"Yeah why?"

"Turn that shit off, it'll drain the battery"

"Nah, it's still full. I think I'm good." He turns his light towards Pam and Matt's couch.

"How's your phones…" he trails off when he sees Matt is alone on the couch. "Where's…"

The lights flash back on, but flicker on and off sporadically. Immediately they all spot Pam on the floor close to the exit, and right behind her is Slenderman in all his horrific glory. The remaining five jump to their feet.

"What did you do to her?" Matt screams. When no answer was given Matt charges forward at the faceless intruder. When he was no more than a foot away from introducing his fist to where a nose should have been, all three vanish. As the lights correct themselves, Will turns to Dale.

"We need to find Jacob"

"Fuck that" Aidan cuts in "We still don't know what happened. This could be a joke for all we know. We can't just call Jacob saying 'Hey Slenderman is real' do you know how that would affect him?"

"Two of our friends were just teleported out of sight! How can you think this is a prank? There was no smoke, no mirrors, we didn't even blink and they just vanished."

"I might have blinked" James adds lightheartedly

"Shut up James" everyone said almost simultaneously.

"Wait. James, he is your brother. What do you think?"

"I think if anyone is in danger, it's definitely going to be him." The group goes silent for a couple of seconds, half due to the situation and half because no one had ever seen James in a serious mood. Will is the first one to break the silence.

"Well it's settled then. We need to head north to find Jacob."

"But how? I mean if he's after us too, then how do we travel safely? When do we leave? We'll need weapons of some sort." Dale starts to panic, "can we even hurt him?"

"I doubt it" The video ends there.


End file.
